Billboard's 20 Best Rap Albums of 2024

If there were any remaining doubts as to hip-hop’s MVP, consider the decision stamped: Kendrick Lamar officially won 2024. There were whispers that Compton’s finest was working on an album in the wake of his feud with Drake, a once-in-a-generation beef that kept jaws dropped for months. (Perhaps you’ve heard of a little song called “Not Like Us,” an immediate entry into the canon of all-time great diss tracks.) After a sold-out celebration at the Kia Forum, an armful of Grammy nods and streaming records, and the headlining slot at next year’s Super Bowl, Lamar ties up his biggest year yet with a bow with his sixth album, *GNX*, the most legitimately surprising surprise drop since *BEYONCÉ* in 2013. Named for his beloved classic Buick, *GNX* finds Kendrick wielding a hatchet he’s by no means ready to bury, still channeling this summer’s cranked-to-11 energy. On “wacced out murals,” he’s riding around listening to Anita Baker, plotting on several downfalls: “It used to be fuck that n\*\*\*a, but now it’s plural/Fuck everybody, that’s on my body.” (Yes, there’s a nod to his Super Bowl drama with Lil Wayne.) If you’ve been holding your breath for Jack Antonoff to link with Mustard, wait no more—the seemingly odd couple share production credits on multiple tracks, the explosive “tv off” among them. Still, K.Dot keeps you guessing: It’s not quite 12 tracks of straight venom over world-conquering West Coast beats. SZA helps cool things down on the Luther Vandross-sampling “luther,” while Lamar snatches back a borrowed title on “heart pt. 6” to remember the early days of TDE: “Grinding with my brothers, it was us against them, no one above us/Bless our hearts.” He cycles through past lives over a flip of 2Pac’s “Made N\*\*\*\*z” on “reincarnated” before getting real with his father about war, peace, addiction, and ego death, and on “man at the garden,” he outlines his qualifications for the position of GOAT. Here’s another bullet point to add to that CV: On *GNX*, Lamar still surprises while giving the people exactly what they want.

On Doechii’s 2024 release, the Tampa-born rapper showcases the blend of clever rhymes with deep, philosophical musings that have punctuated early releases like 2020’s *Oh the Places You\'ll Go* mixtape and 2022’s *she / her / black bitch* EP. Lead cut “STANKA POOH” finds the Top Dawg Entertainment artist wrestling with her artistic mortality and role as a Black woman in music. She raps: “Let’s start the story backwards/I’m dead, she’s dead, just another Black Lives Mattered/And if I die today I die a bastard/TikTok rapper, part-time YouTube actor.” Obviously, Doechii aims to be bigger than viral clips and TV shows so small they can fit on your computer screen. On *Alligator Bites Never Heal*, Doechii asserts herself as one of rap’s most impressive bar-for-bar MCs. “DENIAL IS A RIVER” is a classic narrative cut in the style of Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story,” while “NISSAN ALTIMA” is an electro-rap thriller designed to keep the dance floor hot and heart rates up. She sums it up simply enough when she raps: “All beef gets smoked/I’m a real fly bitch, you in coach.”

As someone who invited fame and courted infamy, first with inflammatory albums like *Wolf* and later with his flamboyant fashion sense via GOLF WANG, Tyler Okonma is less knowable than most stars in the music world. While most celebrities of his caliber and notoriety either curate their public lives to near-plasticized extremes or become defined by tabloid exploits, the erstwhile Odd Futurian chiefly shares what he cares to via his art and the occasional yet ever-quotable interview. As his Tyler, The Creator albums pivoted away from persona-building and toward personal narrative, as on the acclaimed *IGOR* and *CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST*, his mystique grew grandiose, with the undesirable side effect of greater speculation. The impact of fan fixation plays no small part on *CHROMAKOPIA*, his seventh studio album and first in more than three years. Reacting to the weirdness, opening track “St. Chroma” finds Tyler literally whispering the details of his upbringing, while lead single “Noid” more directly rages against outsiders who overstep both online and offline. As on his prior efforts, character work plays its part, particularly on “I Killed You” and the two-hander “Hey Jane.” Yet the veil between truth and fiction feels thinner than ever on family-oriented cuts like “Like Him” and “Tomorrow.” Lest things get too damn serious, Tyler provocatively leans into sexual proclivities on “Judge Judy” and “Rah Tah Tah,” both of which should satisfy those who’ve been around since the *Goblin* days. When monologue no longer suits, he calls upon others in the greater hip-hop pantheon. GloRilla, Lil Wayne, and Sexyy Red all bring their star power to “Sticky,” a bombastic number that evolves into a Young Buck interpolation. A kindred spirit, it seems, Doechii does the most on “Balloon,” amplifying Tyler’s energy with her boisterous and profane bars. Its title essentially distillable to “an abundance of color,” *CHROMAKOPIA* showcases several variants of Tyler’s artistry. Generally disinclined to cede the producer’s chair to anyone else, he and longtime studio cohort Vic Wainstein execute a musical vision that encompasses sounds as wide-ranging as jazz fusion and Zamrock. His influences worn on stylishly cuffed sleeves, Neptunes echoes ring loudly on the introspective “Darling, I” while retro R&B vibes swaddle the soapbox on “Take Your Mask Off.”

The scrappy Memphis rapper has been on a two-year victory lap since her 2022 breakthrough hit “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” established her as one of rap’s most promising new voices. Since then, GloRilla’s dropped an EP (2022’s *Anyways, Life’s Great...*) and her first studio mixtape (2024’s *Ehhthang Ehhthang*), scored a Grammy nomination, and sold out arenas alongside Megan Thee Stallion for the Hot Girl Summer Tour. The glow-up is real on *GLORIOUS*, her official debut album, but let it be known that the reigning queen of crunk is still hanging out the window with her ratchet-ass friends when the opportunity arises. “It’s 7 pm Friday/It’s 95 degrees/I ain’t got no n\*\*\*a and no n\*\*\*a ain’t got me,” she declares in the opening bars of “TGIF,” a worthy “F.N.F.” follow-up made for blasting at max volume. There’s plenty of the rowdy girl-power anthems fans have come to expect from Big Glo, among them the bad-bitch motivational “PROCEDURE” with Latto and “WHATCHU KNO ABOUT ME,” a Sexyy Red collab that riffs on the Trill Entertainment classic “Wipe Me Down.” Less expected is “RAIN DOWN ON ME,” a gospel number with a blessing from Kirk Franklin, though it’s really only fitting for a rapper born Gloria Hallelujah Woods.

A Top Dawg Entertainment fixture since the early 2010s, ScHoolboy Q played no small role in elevating the label to hip-hop’s upper echelon. With his Black Hippy cohorts Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock, the tremendously talented Los Angeles native made a compelling case for continuing the West Coast’s rap legacy well beyond the G-funk era or the days of Death Row dominance. Even still, his relative absence from the game after *CrasH Talk* dropped in 2019 has been hard to ignore, particularly as the most prominent member of his group departed TDE while SZA became the roster’s most undeniable hitmaker. Indeed, it’s been nearly five years since he gave us more than a loosie, which makes the arrival of his sixth full-length *BLUE LIPS* all the more auspicious. His concerns as a lyricist draw upon the micro as well as the macro level, as a parent decrying mass school shootings on “Cooties” or as a rap star operating on his own terms on “Nunu.” Elevating the drama, the *Saw* soundtrack cue nods of “THank god 4 me” accent his emboldened bars targeting snitches, haters, and fakes. Q’s guest selection reflects a more curatorial ear at work than the gratifying star-power flexes found on *CrasH Talk*. Rico Nasty righteously snarls through her portion of the menacing “Pop,” while Freddie Gibbs glides across the slow funk groove of “oHio” with scene-stealing punchlines. A producer behind TDE records by Isaiah Rashad and REASON, Devin Malik steps out from behind the boards to touch the mic on a handful of cuts, namely “Love Birds” and the booming paean “Back n Love.”

Looking at the stats, you’d think Megan Thee Stallion was on top of the world: “HISS,” the second single from her third studio album, was her first solo chart-topper. But as the silver-tongued Houston native has risen from cult-favorite Instagram freestyler to full-fledged cultural force after breaking through with 2019’s “Hot Girl Summer,” the rapper’s been weighed down by grief and betrayal, all highly public and intensely scrutinized. On 2022’s *Traumazine*, Megan began to let down her guard and open up about her pain. She teased its follow-up in late 2023 with a statement: “Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past, over and over again.” On *MEGAN*, she’s still going through it, but she’s not going down without a fight. The motif of the snake, coiled and waiting to strike, winds its way through *MEGAN*’s 18 tracks with cool, collected menace. “Still going hard with the odds against me,” she spits on “HISS” over an eerie beat from go-to producer LilJuMadeDaBeat. She’s got devastating burns for everybody within earshot on “Rattle,” snapping at an unnamed peer, “Your life must be boring as fuck if you still reminiscing ’bout shit that we did.” (Her claim to be “a motherfuckin’ brat, not a Barbie” on “Figueroa” might clarify its intended target.) There are moments of levity: “Otaku Hot Girl” flexes her arcane anime knowledge, while “Accent” recruits Hot Girl Summer tourmate GloRilla for a country-girl ode to being “thicker than a Popeye’s biscuit.” But you get the sense that for Megan, it’s awfully lonely at the top: On “Moody Girl,” she switches her trademark tagline to “real motherfuckin’ sad girl shit.” And over the metalcore guitar chug driving “COBRA,” she tells you how it feels to break down while the world is watching.

“I don’t be trying to get too involved in the ‘extra big shoes to fill’ shit,” Latto tells Apple Music of her provocative and spirited third album. “I just do me, and I really feel like that have worked for me. I feel like all that is due to just me being me.” On *Sugar Honey Iced Tea*, the rapper elevates her work beyond what she feels is a “single-driven and club-driven” culture. “I wanted to make a cohesive project,” she says. “And I think with that, to sit through, what, an hour of one person, you have to be dimensional and be multidimensional, and I think you have to showcase different sides and versions of your artistry.” And with “Big Mama,” she found a single that didn’t compromise her vision. “I was like, ‘Okay, this the best one. It shows the versatility in the song.’” The album is also brimming with smooth collaborations—including Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Ciara, Flo Milli, Young Nudy, Hunxho, Coco Jones, Mariah the Scientist, and Teezo Touchdown—which was Latto’s goal. “Everybody on there, I’m a fan of personally,” she says. “I made the music first and then I was like, ‘Okay, I think this person. Let me call this person. I want them to get on it.’ Or ‘I feel like they could add to the song.’ So everything was very intentional.” The bouncy and playful “Squeeze” with Megan Thee Stallion is Latto’s answer to the success of her 2021 hit “Big Energy.” “I didn\'t want to just run away from that pop fanbase that I had built,” she says. “So I wanted to incorporate some of that without it sounding too poppy, because I don’t think that’s where I’m rooted. I come from a rap competition show. I think it’s very clear, very evident that I’m a rapper first.” Certain tracks may shed light on her personal life, too. If “Prized Possession” featuring Teezo Touchdown tells the story of a toxic relationship (“I think I was very keen on it being a mood,” she explains), the sexy and sultry “Look What You Did” with Mariah the Scientist captures how Latto has been feeling running up to the album’s release. “This whole project is about my last two years,” she says. “And I feel like I found someone who uplifts me as a person.” But even so, Latto reminds us where the focus should be: “Listen to the music and you’ll know what you need to know.”

Over the course of his decade-plus in the spotlight, Future has allowed his many alter egos a turn at center stage. There’s Future Hendrix, the soulful hippie for whom 2017’s *HNDRXX* is named, and *The WIZRD*, a nickname given by his uncle and the namesake of 2019’s *Future Hndrxx Presents: The WIZRD*. Super Future represents him at his catchiest, where Fire Marshal Future shows the rapper at his most lit (as in, the fire marshals are going to have to shut the club down). But it’s been a while since we’ve seen Pluto, the character associated with his earliest projects, including 2012’s *Pluto*, the debut studio album that revealed him as a secret romantic and unexpected hitmaker. That eerie, pink-lit house on the cover of *MIXTAPE PLUTO*, Future’s first solo release of 2024, is none other than the Dungeon, the Georgia studio from which some of history’s most vital and inventive rap music emerged, from Goodie Mob to Outkast to Future himself. The basement studio was owned by Rico Wade, Organized Noize producer and Future’s older cousin. When Wade died at 52, Future posted a poignant message to Instagram: “This life wouldn’t b possible if it wasn’t for my cousin. Love u forever.” Across the album’s 17 featureless tracks, Future pays tribute not only to his uncle and mentor, but also to the era from which he emerged. “SKI,” “MJ,” and “READY TO COOK UP” deliver elevated updates on his narcotized rasp circa 2011’s *Dirty Sprite*, 2012’s *Astronaut Status*, and 2013’s underrated *F.B.G.: the Movie*. (“READY TO COOK UP,” in particular, feels like a high-end sequel to *Dirty Sprite*’s haunting title track: He might pull up in a helicopter, but he still knows how to use a Pyrex.) But it’s his soulful side that shines on tracks like “SURFING A TSUNAMI,” a shimmering hallucination of mermaids and giant waves, or on “OCEAN” when he croons, “So many tears, I could fill up an ocean.” And on the heartbreaking “LOST MY DOG,” he mourns a friend who died from a fentanyl overdose: “His mama tried to raise an angel, turned out gangster like his daddy/We share the same pain, so I knew he wasn’t happy.” It’s further evidence for Future as one of our greatest living bluesmen.

Having previously partnered with some of hip-hop’s most iconic producers, not the least of whom being J Dilla, Common built a career on securing superb beats to suit his agile rhymes. While many rappers of his generation hopped from trend to trend, repeat and reliable collaboration proved core to his discography, with several of the same studio figures from his early albums now fixtures in his circle decades later. It’s the native Chicagoan’s characteristic consistency, perhaps, that makes *The Auditorium, Vol. 1* such a momentous album event. A hip-hop artist indisputably worthy of the word “legend,” Pete Rock comes to this joint effort with the rare distinction of both defining and embodying Golden Era greatness. Though relatively selective about who he deems dope enough to form a duo with since the C.L. Smooth days, the Bronx-born producer generated goodwill and critical respect for his 2010s efforts opposite his city’s Skyzoo and Smoke DZA. As such, he makes a formidable complement for Common, evident from the jump on the exquisite intro “Dreamin’.” His timeless instrumentals conjure certain nostalgic tendencies from the MC, his verses on “We’re on Our Way” and “This Man” laden with old-school references and lyrical memorabilia. From the jazzy swing of “Everything’s So Grand” to the enlightened gospel groove of “A GOD (There Is),” the pair deliver on the promise of their premise, delivering theatrical thrills befitting their skills. And not that an album of this caliber requires special rapper guests, but Posdnuos of De La Soul is a naturally welcome addition to “When the Sun Shines Again.” Furthermore, Rock lays down some refreshing bars of his own on “All Kind of Ideas,” thus providing Common with a worthy foil on the mic as well as off and increasing anticipation for a presumed second volume.

Historically, the Drops series of EPs has served as a platform for Little Simz to express her more immediate creative thoughts and inner feelings, parallel to—and sometimes in concert with—her fully realized, full-length projects. *Drop 7* presents a curious window into the rapper’s current moment in time, spread across seven snapshots seemingly snatched in the well-timed flash of strobe lights. When she last checked in on a Drops release (battling through lockdown isolation and a bout of self-doubt to create *Drop 6* in 2020) Simz was still a year away from *Sometimes I Might Be Introvert*, the game-changing album that garnered the long-overdue recognition meritorious of such a singular talent. Undeniably at the top of her game right now, Simz channels that potent self-confidence through the fervent, primal Jakwob production—the powerfully still eye in a storm of commanding drums and reverberating echoes. Opening track “Mood Swings” foreshadows the pendulum sweep that occurs between “SOS” and “I Ain’t Feelin It,” separating the EP into two neatly opposing halves. The first is front-loaded with heart-pounding, club-ready beats and an untouchable, unrelenting Simz: “Torch” borrows the signature Jersey-bounce squeak, “Fever” marks a return to São Paulo (the setting for 2021’s collaboration between Jakwob and Simz, “Rollin Stone”) for a bilingual, baile-funk-infused flirtation. The back end sees Simz floating her meditations on the less palatable side of success over intricate, yet reserved instrumentation, closing out with “Far Away,” a lovelorn lament that drenches the racing percussion in melancholic piano chords. Whether or not *Drop 7* is a one-off experiment or an intriguing hint at a new direction, it’s electrifying to experience new facets of Simz’s consummate artistry. She proves herself as compelling as ever.

After nearly two decades in the game, Rapsody’s left no room for doubt when it comes to her formidable pen. But it wasn’t until 2020, when she began piecing together her fourth studio album, *Please Don’t Cry*, that Marlanna Evans realized that she’d shared very little of herself beyond her mic skills. “People had to put up a mirror for me,” she admitted to Apple Music’s Ebro Darden, recalling a pivotal conversation with the producer No ID. “He was like, ‘Everybody knows you can rap, but I can’t tell you five things that I know about you.’” Thus began the North Carolina native’s journey inward: Before she could reintroduce herself to her fans, she’d have to know herself first. The result of that journey, *Please Don’t Cry*, is Rapsody’s deepest and boldest work yet. “Who are you in your rawest state?” asks the gentle voice of the album’s narrator, Phylicia Rashad. Making the record, Rapsody found her mind wandering towards *The Matrix*, in particular the relationship between Neo and the Oracle. “He’s trying to find his way, trying to find himself…and she’s kind of his guiding voice,” she tells Darden. “I was like, ‘That’s kind of what this journey has been for me, but who would be my Oracle?’” Rashad was the first name that came to mind. Through interludes, the Tony Award winner nudges Rapsody further down the path of vulnerability: “Who are you when you’re joyful? What makes you sad? Why do you cry?” Rapsody doesn’t hold back her answers on tracks like “Diary of a Mad Bitch,” a cathartic shit-talking session, or the bittersweet “Loose Rocks,” where she grapples with a loved one’s dementia diagnosis with backup vocals from Alex Isley (yes, that Isley). Intense emotions are countered with airy, meditative beats on the gorgeous “3:AM,” a late-night love song with a hook from Erykah Badu, and the balmy reggae jam “Never Enough.” By the closing track “Forget Me Not,” her fear of vulnerability feels like a distant memory as she raps: “I want to know everything/I want to feel, I want to be alive/It’s too good.”

“Sampling is a part of me, because I grew up on these songs,” Cash Cobain tells Apple Music. “I just take everything, throw it in a bowl and mix it up, and make my own Slizzy sauce.” Raised in the Bronx and Jamaica, Queens, two of the most hallowed locales in hip-hop history, he came up as a leader in the city’s vibrant sample-drill and sexy-drill waves before breaking big nationally as a sought-after producer for Drake, Trippie Redd, and Lil Yachty, to name but a few. Even while he scored hits and built his movement with locals such as B-Lovee and Chow Lee, he didn’t get as much credit for his rapping until his single “Fisherrr” with Bay Swag and its corresponding Ice Spice remix made him inescapably ubiquitous. “Two years ago, I thought I made it,” he says, adding, “but now I’m like, ‘You going somewhere.’” After linking on both sides of the booth as a featured artist opposite the likes of Don Toliver and A Boogie wit da Hoodie, his proper album debut *PLAY CASH COBAIN* puts him fully front and center. The raw sexual energy of “act like” and “rump punch” exemplify the sumptuous sound he pioneered and its correspondingly raunchy lyrical direction. Elsewhere, though, he demonstrates a softer, more romantic side on “message to u” and “wassup wya,” actively conjuring his dream girl fantasies into sincere realities. (“The album is sexual healing,” he quips.) Whether he’s creatively interpolating R&B classics on “all i wanna hear” and “cantsleep/drunkinluv” or flirting with other sources like on the Afrobeats-inflected “luv it,” his cutting-edge approach makes nearly every track feel momentous and of the moment. As if his own verses and hooks weren’t enough, the diverse guest list on *PLAY CASH COBAIN* nods to Cobain’s elevated status in the rap game. Quavo and the aforementioned Toliver help set the tone on opener “slizzyhunchodon,” their respective waves uniting for one irrestible vibe. For the show-stopping “problem,” he gathers a breathtaking and unexpected array of compounding features by everyone from Big Sean and Fabolous to Flo Milli and YN Jay. “It\'s like everyone is doing their own freestyle to it,” he says of the multigenerational posse cut built around Brooklyn singer Laila!’s single “Not My Problem.” For the most part, Cobain does what he does best without high-profile help, reflecting his humble rise from a South Jamaica basement. “I’m just trying to bring positivity and fun,” he says. “I want my people or my peers around me to do the same. I want everybody to win.”

Where 2023’s *Love Sick* provided a means for Don Toliver to live out his funk-soul fantasies, the subsequent *HARDSTONE PSYCHO* finds him on an arena-rock-star wave. To be sure, this doesn’t at all mean the Houston rapper/singer is awash in gaudy guitar noodling or engaged in performative posturing here. Instead, he treats his chosen premise like a new state of mind, transmuting the weight and complexity of his catalog into this larger-than-life version of his artistry. So when some distinct riffs launch “BANDIT” and “TORE UP,” he effortlessly slips into the leather-jacketed cool in a manner that historically has eluded most rappers who’ve attempted such a move. Divided into four movements, *HARDSTONE PSYCHO* may mirror classic-rock indulgence in terms of overall structure, but more specifically it delivers on what fans from his *Heaven or Hell* or *Life of a DON* days desire. His voice, pliable and otherworldly, carries the muted fuzz of “KRYPTONITE,” the bleep-laden R&B of “DEEP IN THE WATER,” and the trippy trap of “4X4.” On “HARDSTONE NATIONAL ANTHEM,” he follows through on the titular promise with a showstopper that expertly reconfigures the pop-wise power ballad format. As before, Toliver’s brought a few guests along to amplify and augment himself on record. Naturally, his Cactus Jack benefactor Travis Scott makes a handful of appearances, first as a sleek spitter on “ICE AGE” and later as his crooning co-conspirator on “INSIDE.” *Love Sick* standout Charlie Wilson returns to briefly feature on the Cash Cobain collab “ATTITUDE,” its low-end rumble and inventive Pharrell callback giving considerable chills, while Future and Metro Boomin reignite their “Too Many Nights” torch for “PURPLE RAIN.”

It’s understandable if Gunna feels a bit isolated these days. For some two years now, the Georgia-bred rapper has been on the defensive—first, when he was indicted in a sweeping YSL Records RICO case and, subsequently, in the time since his release by the feds. “I’m still fighting,” he tells Apple Music. “I still got friends incarcerated, and I’m still growing, too and getting massive.” Indeed, amid the sly whispers and outright accusations levied against him in hip-hop’s court of public opinion, he nonetheless managed to maintain both his commercial viability and star status with 2023’s *a Gift & a Curse*. That earned him one of the biggest singles of his career in “fukumean,” which, like the rest of the album, eschewed features and put the spotlight squarely upon himself. “It’s a bittersweet moment for me,” he admits. Nearly one year later, he returns with *One of Wun*, another defiant and largely solo testament to his endurance in the face of genuine adversity. Opener “collage” seems to take stock of his current situation, dismissing those who wish he’d retire or otherwise quit the rap game. From there, Gunna faces down opposition with impeccable drip while reveling in the lifestyle he’s become accustomed to, conflating matters on “whatsapp (wassam)” and the title track. From his perspective, professional jealousy and rumor-mongering are no match for his swag. “I’m wearing clothes differently now,” he says of his sartorial aesthetic, which comes up not infrequently throughout the project. “It’s not just about the name. It’s more like really where it come from or the cut of it.” Unlike on *a Gift & a Curse*, a few guests do stop by to show support. Gunna and Offset go way back to the *Drip Season 2* days, making their reunion on “prada dem” all the more momentous. Another repeat collaborator, Roddy Ricch comes through for “let it breathe,” a sleek and moody rebuttal to the haters.

Vince Staples knows his songs aren’t soundtracking too many wild Friday night parties; they sound way better on the long, contemplative walk home. “I’ve always been aware of where I fit within the ecosystem of this whole thing, and that allows me to create freely,” he tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “No one’s coming to me from a fan standpoint looking for a single, or looking for a party record. But I do know the people who listen to my music are probably looking for thoughtfulness or creativity.” Since breaking through a decade ago with his debut EP *Hell Can Wait*, the Long Beach rapper has been the go-to guy for heady West Coast rap: songs that may not make you dance, but always make you think. Still, his sixth studio album (and the last one on his Def Jam contract) isn’t quite the downer that the title suggests. Where its predecessor, 2022’s *RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART*, looked back at his bittersweet youth, *Dark Times* is a snapshot of Staples right now: on top of the world on paper, but the reality is trickier. (“I think I’m losing it,” he raps on the bass-heavy “Black&Blue.” “Hope you’re along for the ride.”) On “Government Cheese” he grapples with survivor’s guilt, mourning his brother and lying that all’s well to his friend in prison who saw him on TV. Still, light enters through the cracks with breezy, soulful beats from frequent collaborators Michael Uzowuru and LeKen Taylor, not to mention Staples’ trademark dry wit: “Don’t be no crab in the bucket, be a Crip at the Ritz,” he quips on “Freeman.” There’s even a few tracks you could bump at the function: “Étouffée,” a love letter to New Orleans rap, and “Little Homies,” a lo-fi house jam on whose hook Staples crows, “Life hard, but I go harder.” And no matter how heavy things get, Staples is realistic about what his work means in the grand scheme of things. “They\'re just songs, man,” he says. “It doesn\'t need to go past that point. I know everybody values things differently—but for me at least, put it out, people listen to it, they like it or they don\'t. And then if you get to do it the next time, that\'s the gift that you get is the ability to do it the next time, because most people don\'t get that.”

From the outside, Cordae has a good life: He’s earned a handful of gold plaques and collaborated with the likes of Lil Wayne and Stevie Wonder. But with his third album *The Crossroads*, he’s attempting to find balance between enjoying the spoils of his success and staying grounded. He’s boastful and braggadocious on “Mad as F\*ck” and “Back on the Road” (which includes one of the album’s two Lil Wayne features), but he never lets his success lead him too far from what’s important to him. He admits to buying a house in Boca Raton, Florida, since Miami homes were too expensive, and recalls memories of working at a TGI Friday’s restaurant and growing up around violence. But he’s arguably at his best when he’s waxing poetic about his family: “06 dreamin” honors his mom’s musical pursuits on shows like *American Idol* and *Making the Band*, “Shai Afeni” is a heartfelt ode to his newborn daughter, and “Now You Know” mourns the loss of his grandmother.